NEW YORK - At the end of last month, the
US Selective Service System issued a report
assuring President George W Bush that it would be
ready to implement a draft within 75 days. While
stirring up a storm of speculation, this report
may actually be the least compelling harbinger of
military conscription.

Far more dire is
the skyrocketing need for troops amid plummeting
supply. More than 300,000 of the 482,000 soldiers
in the US Army are already deployed abroad,
predominantly in Iraq, Afghanistan, South Korea
and the former Yugoslavia. The ratio of two
soldiers abroad for every one at home is the
opposite of what military strategists say is
necessary to maintain a long-term deployment.

It would take 100,000 new troops at home
to correct this discrepancy, but the government
concedes that new troops are not coming in.

All four military services missed their
enlistment quotas last year, according to one
analysis, and regular military, reserve and
National Guard recruitment levels are at a 30-year
low.

With a lack of new troops, the
Pentagon has relied heavily on rotations to
maintain the 150,000-strong force in Iraq. Yet a
Pentagon-funded poll in late 2003 found that 49%
of troops did not plan to re-enlist, and that
number is likely to be even higher now.

Without a major influx of new recruits,
many observers say the option of relying on
Reserves and National Guard troops is not
sustainable.

Last September, the 40,000
National Guard troops who make up nearly half of
US forces in Iraq were asked to remain on active
duty after their tours were done, and most were
officially told that their enlistment would extend
until 2031. This presidential action, known as
"stop loss", is only meant for emergencies or
congressionally declared wars, of which Iraq is
neither.

The head of the Army Reserves
recently wrote a memo saying that over-deployment
has crippled his troops' readiness and that the
reserves were "degenerating into a broken force".

Almost desperate, the Pentagon has called
up more than 5,500 "Ready Reserves", older men and
women whose regular reserve duty has already
ended, and many of whom are now grandfathers and
grandmothers. The army also plans to significantly
increase the number of recruiters and to launch a
new US$150 million ad campaign.

Jeffrey
Record, a visiting professor at the Air War
College, said in a January 2004 report that the US
Army is "near the breaking point". And Charles
Moskos, creator of the army's "Don't Ask Don't
Tell" policy on homosexual soldiers, and an
adviser to four presidents on military affairs,
was quoted last July as saying, "We cannot achieve
the number of troops we need in Iraq without a
draft."

Since Vietnam, those who cried
"draft" have been laughed at. But the combination
of increasing troop needs, a shortage of new
recruits and a hawkish administration that is now
casting shadowy glances Iran, Syria, and Korea has
led the US media, from Rolling Stone to Time
magazine, once again to take up the question of
conscription.

The US left is also gearing
up to counter a potential draft, and to strike at
the occupation where it is most vulnerable -
military recruitment.

The weekend before
last, activists and former military personnel who
resisted combat duty came together for a youth and
resistance conference in New York City. At the
heart of the conference, organized by NYC No Draft
No Way, was a plan to support and encourage
resisters in the military, and to cut off the
information channels and recruitment methods used
by recruiters like the Reserve Officers' Training
Corps (ROTC).

"Bush and [Defense Secretary
Donald] Rumsfeld said absolutely there will not be
a draft," said Dustin Langley, a former US Navy
officer and organizer for the No Draft, No Way
campaign. "This is the man who said that 'we know
where the WMD [weapons of mass destruction in
Iraq] are', 'I will restore dignity to the White
House', and 'we will be greeted as liberators in
Iraq'.

"All a draft takes is for
Congress to sit down and pass legislation,"
Langley said. "Military recruiters don't have the
right to be on our campuses, to lie to us, and to
take our children to an early grave."

Justino
Rodriguez, the son of an officer waiting to return
to Iraq on his 42nd tour of duty, also spoke. On
March 9, Rodriguez was beaten and arrested by
police along with two other students from the City
College of New York for peacefully protesting the
presence of military recruiters at a campus career
fair.

Rodriguez said that the career fair
more or less consisted of three groups. A queue of
students wrapped around the corner for jobs
offered by the telecom giant Verizon, while the
retail chain Walgreens made its case for
entry-level positions paying $8 an hour. And then
there were the military recruiters.

"They
prey on the fact we can barely afford to go to
college," Rodriguez said. "What they don't say is
it's so hard to get the GI Bill that less than
half do."

Rodriguez and two other
students, as well as 20 faculty and staff who
challenged the recruiters, were suspended from
school. A petition started that day demanding the
full reinstatement of staff and students - which
has been done - received 1,000 signatures. The
students are still fighting the criminal charges.

Langley and others say parents need to be
educated about parts of the No Child Left Behind
Act that allow military recruiters to access
information about students including their home
address, telephone number, and extracurricular
activities. Most are unaware that they can prevent
this information from being released by submitting
an opt-out form signed by parents or students to
the school administration.

Organizers also
want to publicize the option for military
resisters to find safe haven in Canada. During the
Vietnam War, more than 50,000 Americans went to
Canada to avoid the draft. Today, however,
Canadian law does not allow foreigners to apply
for immediate "landed immigrant status"; they must
apply outside of the country and wait up to two
years or more for a decision.

But Gerry
Condon, a former Green Beret who refused to fight
in Vietnam and who is organizing support for
military personnel who have already gone to Canada
to avoid fighting in the Iraq war, says military
resisters can avoid the new law by entering Canada
as tourists and applying for refugee status.

At the conference, Condon said he was
surprised the anti-war movement had not been
bolder in asking people in the military to resist.
"It's illegal," he said, "but so is the war."